Will Cheney and Pelosi Be
Partners in Mass Murder?

by Jeffrey Steinberg

November 2007

This article is reprinted, with permission, from Executive Intelligence Review (EIR)

If the United States goes ahead with the bombing campaign against Iran that Vice President Dick Cheney has been strenuously promoting, there is no doubt that he will have the blood of millions of people on his hands, surpassing even the crimes of Hitler. What should be equally clear is that if "preventive war" is launched, Speaker of the House Nancy "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi (D-Calif.), will go down in history as Cheney's partner in genocide, for her role in keeping the Vice President in office, in the face of overwhelming evidence of impeachable crimes, and a groundswell of popular demand for his ouster.

Left to right: Vice-President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush, Representative Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader, Democrat from California.

As Lyndon LaRouche has emphasized, at this late date, the only reliable war-avoidance path for the United States is the "preemptive impeachment" of the Vice President. Unless Cheney is forced out of office now, it is a virtual certainty that the United States will attack Iran militarily, and that this will trigger an asymmetric World War III, which will result in the deaths of tens of millions of people, at minimum, and destroy the United States forever as the republican "beacon of liberty" for mankind.

No 'Seven Days in May'

On Nov. 12, Adm. William Fallon, the Commander-in-Chief of CENTCOM, gave an extraordinary interview to the Financial Times, in which he categorically rejected the idea of an American preventive attack on Iran. Admitting that dealing with Iran was "a challenge," he nevertheless declared that a U.S. attack was not "in the offing." Admiral Fallon told the reporters, "None of this is helped by the continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war, which is just not where we want to go. Getting Iranian behavior to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book."

The CENTCOM chief next implicitly hit at Cheney and at President George W. Bush—who have both threatened Iran and U.S. allies with World War III if Iran gets close to having a nuclear bomb—warning that "generally, the bellicose comments are not particularly helpful." The admiral called on the Iranians to signal their openness to cooperate: "We need to see them do something along the lines of 'we are serious about having a dialogue' and then maybe we can do something."

The Financial Times also quoted from two former CENTCOM commanders, who both seconded Fallon's rejection of a military attack. Gen. John Abizaid (USA-ret.), the man Fallon replaced at CENTCOM, said that the United States should avoid confrontation with Iran, since it would be "devastating for everybody." He went so far as to say that the United States could even live with a nuclear-armed Iran, echoing earlier statements by Gen. William Odom (ret.), former director of the National Security Agency. Gen. Anthony Zinni (USMC-ret.) emphasized that U.S. military forces were "stretched too thin" to engage in a protracted confrontation with Iran.

The Financial Times noted that Fallon's "comments served as a shot across the bows of hawks who are arguing for imminent action. They also echoed the views of the senior brass that military action is currently unnecessary, and should only be considered as an absolute last resort."

Indeed, Admiral Fallon, speaking for the vast majority of American flag-grade officers, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went about as far as any active duty officer could go—short of a fundamental breach of the constitutional doctrine of civilian control of the military.

The admiral's intervention was, most of all, directed at Congress, which has the constitutional responsibility for impeachment—and has, so far, demonstrated a potentially fatal dose of institutional cowardice.

In the case of Speaker Pelosi, the issue is not cowardice. The issue, as most leading Democrats know, is that she is owned by fascist banker Felix Rohatyn, who, along with Bush Administration "Godfather" George Shultz, is a driving force behind the privatization of war, and of such earlier war crimes as the Pinochet coup in Chile in the 1970s.

The Impeachment Mandate

As reported last week in EIR, on Nov. 6, the U.S. House of Representatives, by a bipartisan vote of 218-194, referred a privileged resolution by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), calling for the impeachment of the Vice President, to the House Judiciary Committee, for action.

Following a Nov. 14 Capitol Hill forum, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the House Judiciary Committee chairman, told reporters that the impeachment resolution against Cheney is "under active consideration." The chairman refused to provide any further details, describing the Cheney impeachment, accurately, as "the most sensitive matter before the nation." During the forum, Conyers candidly admitted that "every member up here is being besieged by people demanding an impeachment action be begun." He went on to say, "This is the subject that governs what happens in 2008. This is the subject that people are coming to us, asking 'if they [the impeachment provisions of the Constitution] don't apply now, when will they ever apply?' "

During the Nov. 6 House floor showdown on the Kucinich resolution, Speaker Pelosi was conveniently out of town, leaving House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to bungle the effort to table the motion and bury it until the clock runs out on the 110th Congress. Congressional sources confirm that a behind-the-scenes brawl is under way among House Democratic leaders, over how to deal with the Cheney impeachment, given that an overwhelming majority of Americans both want Cheney out, and believe that the Vice President has already committed high crimes and misdemeanors.

Two senior Democratic staffers acknowledged to EIR that the issue driving the debate is Iran. "If there wasn't the looming threat of a U.S. preemptive attack on Iran," one Hill Democrat admitted, "we would just leave Cheney hanging there, as the perfect hate object going into 2008. But nobody is confident that a hit on Iran is off the table. That is the dilemma Democrats are struggling with."

War in Sixty Seconds

U.S. military experts, polled by EIR, have told Members of Congress, in private discussions, that there is no time to stop a bombing of Iran, once President Bush gives the order. According to one source, the Eighth Air Force, assigned to the Strategic Command (STRATCOM), has a detailed, updated bombing plan ready to go, as part of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "Global Strike" doctrine. An initial bombing run would not necessarily involve assets of the Central Command, but merely strategic bombers from STRATCOM. Most Americans—including Congressmen—could wake up one morning to find that war against Iran had already begun.

According to these experts, the only way to actually stop such an attack, is to make it 100% clear to Cheney and Bush, that if they bomb Iran, impeachment proceedings will begin the next day. LaRouche, speaking for a vast majority of Americans, has gone further, insisting that only Cheney's removal from office before an attack is ordered, can assure that World War III will not be launched from Washington.

Clearly, a handful of Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle agree with LaRouche's assessment. On Nov. 9, Kucinich wrote to Conyers, asking the Judiciary Committee chairman to act right away on the Cheney impeachment mandate.

The Kucinich letter, released to the public, read, in part: "Recent reports indicate that the Vice President is attempting to shape the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran to conform to his misperceptions about the threat Iran actually poses. Much like his deceptive efforts in the lead up to the Iraq war, the Vice President appears to be manipulating intelligence to conform to his beliefs.

"If the reports are true, they add additional weight to the case for impeachment. I believe impeachment remains the only tool Congress has to prevent a war in Iran."

The same day, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) called for Congress to hold televised war games, to show the American people the consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran.

In a brief statement on the House floor, McDermott explained, "My concern that the President might launch a military strike against Iran is well known, but my mission here today is not rhetorical.... We know the Pentagon has conducted war games to examine the casualties and consequences of a U.S. military strike against Iran. We should, too. Here are some of the questions we could consider: How many dead? Wounded? How much destruction? Would we pulverize Iranian targets with bunker buster bombs?

"A group of recently retired, high-level CIA intelligence agents brought the idea to me. These are patriots whom we trusted with keeping and protecting America's secrets. They and others, including a retired Air Force Colonel who conducted war games in the Pentagon, would accurately produce a U.S.-Iran war game, just as it's done in the Pentagon. I know because they gave me a plan.

"A military strike against Iran would involve life and death issues. We need to understand what that would look like. I urge my colleagues and the media to join me in demanding that we publicly conduct a U.S.-Iran war game as soon as possible."

While a televised war game. aimed at educating the American people about the horror-show that an Iran war would be, might be useful, it is not a replacement for the one sure way to stop the war: the immediate impeachment of Vice President Cheney.

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